toGo app looks different?

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toGo app looks different?

Theo Pronk
Hi,

When developing views (using WinXP DP5.3) screens on the View Composer
look one way and after deploying look another!

eg a group box is blue lines and text with rounded corners, after
deploying it is black lines and text with square corners - not nearly as
nice!

How can I overcome this?

Thanks heaps,
Theo


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Re: toGo app looks different?

Ian Bartholomew-18
Theo,

> eg a group box is blue lines and text with rounded corners, after
> deploying it is black lines and text with square corners - not nearly
> as nice!
>
> How can I overcome this?

Sounds like you want a manifest file (assuming we are talking about
Windows XP).

The easiest way to get one is to go to the folder where "Dolphin.exe"
is stored and where you will also find a file called
"Dolphin.exe.manifest".  Copy this file and paste the copy into the same
folder as your executable file.  You must then rename the file to match
your executable - if you have "Testing.exe" then the manifest file must
be renamed to "Testing.exe.manifest".  When you start your application
it should then have the enhanced features.

There are a couple of lines in the manifest file that you can edit
(using a text editor) but it's not really needed.

--
Ian

Use the Reply-To address to contact me.
Mail sent to the From address is ignored.


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Re: toGo app looks different?

Theo Pronk
Thanks Ian,

The manifest work great on XP! But now another user wants to run the
same think in Win2000, and again it look like CRAP!

I'm developing these apps on WinXP, and they (the target system) can be
  any of the following win95,winNTworkstation,win98,win2000 or winXP. Is
there a way of ensuring the look is acceptable, ie related to the way it
looks on the development system?

Any ideas?

PS I think I've got winXP covered.

Thanks
Theo
===============================
Ian Bartholomew wrote:

> Theo,
>
>
>>eg a group box is blue lines and text with rounded corners, after
>>deploying it is black lines and text with square corners - not nearly
>>as nice!
>>
>>How can I overcome this?
>
>
> Sounds like you want a manifest file (assuming we are talking about
> Windows XP).
>
> The easiest way to get one is to go to the folder where "Dolphin.exe"
> is stored and where you will also find a file called
> "Dolphin.exe.manifest".  Copy this file and paste the copy into the same
> folder as your executable file.  You must then rename the file to match
> your executable - if you have "Testing.exe" then the manifest file must
> be renamed to "Testing.exe.manifest".  When you start your application
> it should then have the enhanced features.
>
> There are a couple of lines in the manifest file that you can edit
> (using a text editor) but it's not really needed.
>


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Re: toGo app looks different?

Chris Uppal-3
Theo Pronk wrote:

> I'm developing these apps on WinXP, and they (the target system) can be
>   any of the following win95,winNTworkstation,win98,win2000 or winXP. Is
> there a way of ensuring the look is acceptable, ie related to the way it
> looks on the development system?

It depends on what you mean by "acceptable".

If you mean "looks like WinXP" then you are out of luck ;-)

If what you are finding is that apps developed under the XP look and feel have
glitches when running with earlier looks, then I suggest that you switch *your*
copy of XP to using the W2K look.  It seems that windows is better at
dynamically "upgrading" a GUI from W2K than it is at "downgrading" from XP --
an app developed under W2K is more likely to look "right" under XP, than the
other way around.

Of course, that means you loose the XP look in your develoment environment, but
I see that as an advantage rather than otherwise.  You may not agree ;-)

You can also set up multiple XP users with different preferences for L&F which,
together with the fast user switching in XP, makes it relatively easy to test
apps with both appearances.

Its still not perfect, the only way you can really tell if something will work
OK on -- say-- W98 is to test it there.  There's no way around that.  But you
can hope to reduce the amount of cross-platform testing you have to do, and
reduce the number of times that testing will find a problem late.

HTH

    -- chris


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Re: toGo app looks different?

Andy Bower-3
Theo,

> > I'm developing these apps on WinXP, and they (the target system)
> > can be   any of the following win95,winNTworkstation,win98,win2000
> > or winXP. Is there a way of ensuring the look is acceptable, ie
> > related to the way it looks on the development system?
>
> It depends on what you mean by "acceptable".
>
> If you mean "looks like WinXP" then you are out of luck ;-)

I recommend that you try running your app on the other operating
systems before release and "tweaking" it as necessary. Basically,
Dolphin gives the look and feel of the underlying OS so WYHIWYG (what
you have is what you get). We use VMWARE workstation to validate the
behaviour of the Dolphin development environment on the other MS
operating systems. If you can afford it, at $300, it is a great product.

Best regards

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support